I DON'T EVEN THINK HAVING BARRY SCHECK IS A GOOD ENOUGH DEFENSE HERE: For the crime of attempting an ill-advised big band reinterpretation of a Fiona Apple tune, Rachel Zevita's one of many singers likely headed home tonight. Honestly, only Pia Toscano's powerful "I'll Stand By You" and Lauren Alaina's flirty "Turn on the Radio" impressed me tonight above
the pageant-ready performances we generally saw (and over which the judges fawned excesively). I'm kinda intrigued by Lauren Turner, and I assume Thia Megia survives based on narratively-apt song selection, but that's about it. Unlike the men, I have minimal confidence about how this is going to play out tomorrow.
It's also generally ill-advised to sing a song closely associated with a previous Idol winner. Julie Zorrilla's a goner - her Breakaway was average at best, anyway - but I think Naima might have a shot at making the finals, if only by being a wildcard pick. And her Summertime was different enough from Fantasia's, so that should help her. Loved Pia... just flat-out loved her. I thought Thia was pretty good, and she should stick around for a while. Other than that, and probably Lauren Alaina -- a bit of a crapshoot.
ReplyDeleteThe only time I can think of it working was when Allison Iraheta nailed "Alone" by Heart.
ReplyDeleteI'm also freaked out by how much I agreed with Fienberg.
Iraheta's take on "Alone" was so good that I STILL have it in my music library. The goodwill it engendered also carried her for weeks on end when she wasn't doing anything of note.
ReplyDeleteI liked both Laurens and Pia. I like Naima's voice a lot, but I think the Carmen Miranda dress and old-fashioned arrangement may mean that she's in trouble. I would guess that Rachel and Julie are gone no matter what, probably joined by Tatynisa and that blond one whose name I can't remember. The others are sort of a crapshoot. Haley wasn't bad, I thought the judgery WAY overpraised Ashthon which may help save her.
ReplyDeleteI'm just now landing on the fact that the top 12 is going to be chosen tonight. Wow. Brutality!
ReplyDeleteYep. 24 to 13 in one week, instead of the three it normally takes.
ReplyDeleteI saw a rumor that Idol is going to change the schedule, such that next week becomes a wild card week, so that we'd find out about 10 tonight and 2 next week. I hope not, as I'm ready for the finals, really.
ReplyDeleteAll in all, I was pretty impressed with the guys and less impressed with the women this week. The boyfriend (who tried to resist watching with me, but failed) agreed fully. If another guy wins this year, there will be a round of articles asking if the voters of American Idol simply won't vote for a woman. But, at this point, it looks like that could happen just because there may be more strong men in the competition than strong women.
But, in any event, as long as the voters don't really mess up this week and the judges are smart with their WC choices, we should have a pretty strong set of finalists. It would be nice to have a relatively filler-less set of finalists, and it would be great if we didn't have a year like Season 9, where you often only had one strong performance a night, from the same finalist, week after week.
I was the above "guest." Sorry for the accidental anonymity.
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